Definitions:
- noun: summer dink [sum-mer dink]
1. An unpalatable summer tourist
2. A conspicuous, deliberate tourist
- verb: summer dinking [sum-mer dink-ing]
1. The act of unknowingly displeasing a local population while on summer vacation
2. Participating in tourist-like activities (e.g., bus tours, moped rentals, etc…)
The last ferry slips out of Woods Hole just after 9:45 on a Friday night in August, bound for 
Vineyard Haven. Content on the hard, stained chair, my mind and eyes wander over the other folks along for the ride. As a child I’d often sit on the ferry and eye such passengers with barely concealed contempt, understanding they would be visiting my island, getting in the way, driving too slow, or too fast. Put simply, summer dinking.
I hearken back to 2 bumper stickers my mother had pasted on our slightly beat 80’s Chevy Blazer: “Native”, and “Who Cares?”. The slogans were emblazoned across an image of the island, and always generated strong emotions. I’m not sure why my mom chose to place both stickers on the car. Usually one or the other was used to make a statement, a stand. Native: ‘While visiting my island stay out of the way”. Who cares: “Get over yourself”. It really said something. So why did we have both? Was my mom claiming us superior to non-islanders? Or did she recognize the provincial hubris of the self-declared locals? At the time I thought she was conflicted, poor mom. But in retrospect, I think she had intent, a subtle balance in discord. Welcome to our island.
Association of place is no trifle thing, people take this stuff seriously. West Tisbury vs. Vineyard Haven, or the Island vs. the Cape, and even the Cape and Islands vs. the rest of the Massholes. And then of course it’s southern New England vs northern, or New England vs the rest of the country, culminating in what many would consider the grand poohbah, our country vs.theirs. Nationalism sure gets people going. In my recollections and reflections, I acknowledge, as perhaps I always have, the ignorance embedded in my childhood indulgence.
I’m jolted from my reverie by a PA announcement requesting the owner of a black Range Rover with New York plates to please return to the freight deck and turn off their car alarm, reminding me that the summer dink brand is not all guff. There’s something to be said of understanding place, or at least attempting to understand place, which is often glaringly absent from some visitors. For example, using one’s car horn for anything beside saying hello or avoiding another vehicle (Al?) generates immediate disdain. Or failing to acknowledge a fellow driver that has graciously pulled to the side of a single lane dirt road to allow one to pass will likely draw a curt rebuke. So yes, some of the nefarious tourist brands are deserved.
Now that my home has floated off-island, and I often make my way back across with other off-islanders to partake in what the Island offers, I ironically have become in the eyes of many, a dink. I’m no longer part of the club. Who cares?
Alas there’s dinks on both sides of the Sound.
Vineyard Haven. Content on the hard, stained chair, my mind and eyes wander over the other folks along for the ride. As a child I’d often sit on the ferry and eye such passengers with barely concealed contempt, understanding they would be visiting my island, getting in the way, driving too slow, or too fast. Put simply, summer dinking. 
